Duty

Duty came from a requirement of Apple Music, whose profile pictures for artists must show a centred human face, with no type or promotional content. The requirement gave the painting its title and the word written on it: Duty. Naturally, Marcel Duchamp's Self-Portrait in Profile (1957) came to mind as the reference for a profile picture.

The final version kept only the sky from a portrait taken beside the pool of a palace hotel on the French Riviera. The word Duty sets this 'idyllic' image against the obligation to show oneself through a human figure rather than with just any image. The answer here is a portrait in negative, defined by what surrounds it: a sky.